


All One Can't Imagine (But Happens Anyway)

by hithelleth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Light BDSM, Mentions of Suicide Attempts, i think there is nothing else i need to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:10:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hithelleth/pseuds/hithelleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t bode well when a Shield mole catches the eye of Hydra’s second-in-command. Unless, of course, Jemma Simmons is not as opposed to bad girl shenanigans as she lets on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All One Can't Imagine (But Happens Anyway)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelette/gifts).



> This would never have happened if we hadn't talked about how much potential the show wasted with Jemma's infiltration storyline and then my mind went to weird places. Also, this was supposed to be a few thousand words of angst with smut at most, but then the plot got out of control. A little sentimental at times, and I liberally bent season 2 canon to my purposes.
> 
> So, here it is. Merry Christmas, darling! And to everyone else who reads this.

Jemma should have never ever even thought that being undercover inside Hydra is rather dull.

That morning — and not for the first time — she finds it to be just that, for, after the initial thrill of novelty and danger subsided, working for Hydra has not been much of a challenge. It has, however, been irksome, being stuck on doing menial tasks in the downstairs laboratory, and the lack of access to hardly anything worth reporting back to Shield renders her infiltration all but pointless.

Still, she has been doing her best in hopes of advancement.

The day her wish for less boredom comes true starts as any other day, with Theo’s charming mixed metaphors and her immediate supervisor paying her little attention.

Mid-morning, though, the latter all of a sudden presses her about the results of her analysis, saying the timetables have moved up. She uses the opportunity to offer accompanying him and presenting the analysis herself, but he shuts her down.

“Oh, no, you don’t want to go up there,” he stammers, “the higher you go, the scarier it is.”

There is a photo of Donnie Gill in his folder, but he dismisses it when she tries to ask about it: “Just another acquisition.”

She backs off, supposing it is not something she should know, but makes a mental note to get the piece of information to Shield nevertheless, and sets back to the task she was interrupted at.

Mr. Turgeon returns from his meeting before long, informing her that she is wanted upstairs for questioning. He looks even more edgy than usually, probably afraid that whatever she has done — “Nothing,” she answers, as he hisses the question at her — would reflect less than favourably on him as well.

At the top, the atmosphere itself is forbidding, with the vast rooms and austere furnishing, let alone being met by Hydra’s number two, of whom she has so far only known the name and caught a glimpse in passing.

It is interrogation 101, she recalls from what May told her: the seclusion and the surroundings, the guards outside the door, the vaguely threatening mention of potential consequences, the questions fired in quick succession, the suggestion that her transgressions are already known, the invasion of her personal space.

Mr. Bakshi knows his business well, making use of it all and then some.

It is all meant to intimidate, to throw a person off balance. The trick is knowing it and not letting it get to one.

Jemma tries to bear that in mind as she stumbles through selective truths while Bakshi grills her about her history with Shield and Donnie Gill.

It is easier said than done, though, and the cracks in her composure don’t go unnoticed.

“You seem nervous,” Bakshi comments.

“Because I am. I was escorted here by armed guards. I'm well aware of who I work for,” Jemma can’t keep the sarcasm out of her words.

There is something else, too, something she has found hard to place until just then: a certain kind of magnetism, evoked by his commanding presence; an attraction registering with her on a level she has not yet found a response to, and it sets off all the natural reactions in her body.

And that is another issue altogether, one she hopes to keep concealed, while she manoeuvres around explaining her loyalties, managing to stick to the truth and lie at once.

“Well, loyalties can be tested,” Bakshi reminds her.

For a moment, it looks like the interview is over and she is off the hook. He lingers, though, then places his hand on the table beside her, leaning closer.

“I’m curious about something, Ms. Simmons. It seems you have found our conversation, how should I put it, exciting… in some aspects? Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

The question catches her off guard, and her answer is automatic. Not entirely expected, she assumes, as he pauses.

“What else do you find _exciting_?” he asks then, in a lower voice.

Well, she is definitely not going to respond to that, even if she knew where to start.

Bakshi waits, seconds ticking away. Then he straightens and picks up her records from the table.

“We are done here,” he announces.

When he opens the door to let her go, however, he halts her. “Ms. Simmons. Feel free to let me know if you decide to answer the last question.”

***

Unexpected as he is, Jemma is too relieved to see the intruder in her apartment is only Coulson to mind him showing up without a heads-up and letting himself in. She even lets his criticism of her diet — though the lunches at the place near Hydra’s offices are very good — and his cooking pass.

Considering her allegiance to Hydra has come under suspicion, it is the last time he has dropped by like that anyway; it would be safer to use flexi screens to relay messages in the future, he decides, in case she might be watched.

The debriefing is quite different from her morning questioning, all but relaxing, except that she has to be careful of what she says. Coulson is sympathetic, but she can’t exactly tell him everything about the interview or that she woke up with a smile that morning, because going to work into Hydra is no longer something she dreads each day.

And what she definitely doesn’t tell Coulson is that she might have a chance to _make friends_ very high up the ladder indeed.

***

There is no chance in hell she will do that, of course.

Even if the turn from hostile to friendly — or in Bakshi’s case, seductive — wasn’t a common technique used to make one slip and even if she could use it to her advantage, getting involved with Whitehall’s right-hand man would be a terrible idea. Most unwise. Very dangerous.

The problem is that she can deny neither the attraction nor that gut feeling that, however terrible the idea is, he might be just her type.

But she certainly doesn’t let her mind wander there, doesn’t let herself think about him that way.

He haunts her dreams, though, his voice and the imaginary touch of his hands making desire shoot through her body, and she wakes up wet and wanting.

***

Helping bring Donnie Gill into the fold is a non-optional test on which failure would be fatal, success unpleasant, and the process dangerous.

“Don’t worry. We'll have your back every step of the way,” Bakshi says. It is as much a reassurance as it is a threat, just like his promise of listening to everything and talking her through.

“What if he doesn’t respond well?” she asks, knowing the answer already.

“Then I suppose there’ll be a job opening at our laboratory.”

It is enough of a motivation for her to do what is expected of her, in spite of commiserating with the young man.

The uneasy feeling she gets while repeating the words fed into her ear turns into nausea when she comes to the conclusion that she has just helped re-trigger Donnie’s brainwashing. There was nothing she could have done, though, and it is too late, anyway. Shield is all over the place and the events rush past her, with poor Donnie falling shot into the sea.

_A memory flashes thorough her mind: the water closing all around her and Fitz’s dead weight in her hand dragging her down as she struggles to reach the surface._

It is a blessing that things happen too fast for her to get caught in that moment: spotting Skye, the latter’s badly aimed shot, Jemma’s even worse-played pushing Bakshi out of its way — which, in hindsight, she can’t believe he buys into — and then they are on the move and in the helicopter, her cover intact and perhaps even somewhat more secure than when going into the mission.

Like on the way to Morocco, they stop in Spain for a change of transport. While they are being delayed due to an oncoming storm, Bakshi instructs the team to stay with the jet and finish the loading and preparations, he himself taking two men to drive him into the city. 

“You’re coming with,” he bids Jemma.

Their destination is a compound of offices and warehouses, the interior of the building they head into vacant, stripped of basically everything. An abandoned facility — though not for long, since everything looks rather clean — or one not yet in use.

The back rooms look less deserted, if only for an array of desks and counters, pushed against the walls.

Bakshi walks into one of such rooms, turning on his heel to face her.

“There, we have some spare time and now also some privacy,” he says. “I thought we might continue our conversation?”

She has little doubt which conversation he has in mind. Just thinking about it does things to her and making a run for it seems like a better idea than going there. But there is nowhere to run.

“Okay,” she agrees, gingerly.

He makes a step closer.

“Only if you wish, Ms. Simmons. Let me make it perfectly clear: whatever we say — or do — in this regard will have no impact whatsoever on the evaluation of your work for Hydra. And, you may change your mind and back out at any point. Understood?”

 _Well, that is good to know_ and _how thoughtful_ , Jemma thinks. It might, of course, just be a play, a lie, but then… Perhaps she is just tired of being rational, perhaps it is this spy game she got into — the game that she is about to make much more dangerous for herself — getting to her, perhaps she just doesn’t want to fight the pull towards him.

Jemma takes a deep breath and meets his eyes squarely. “Yes. Understood.”

“Good.”

He walks behind her to her other side.

“Now, where were we? It seems you find a certain kind of enjoyment in this manner of conversation?”

 _Interrogation_ , her mind supplies, because that what it was, what it is.

“Yes or no would be welcome,” he prompts her when she doesn’t respond.

“Yes.”

“You find it arousing?” He stands beside her, studying her.

She swallows. “Yes.” She does, her knees going weak since the first damn question, making standing in the middle of an empty space uneasy.

A slight smirk crosses his face as his eyes follow hers as she glances at the desks along the wall which look inviting with the support they could offer.

“What, specifically?”

She has to make an effort to recall what the question was.

“That you are in control, have all the power,” she admits, quietly.

_It is a rush, being so disproportionately overpowered._

“But I don’t,” he counters. “You do. You can back out any time. Remember?”

Right. It actually _is_ a reassurance. “Um. Yes.”

“It’s all about balance, the inequality of power and control, and the perception of the said inequality, Ms. Simmons.”

“I know,” she grits through her teeth.

 _She just hasn’t had much luck finding a partner who would explore that with her_ and _give her all the rest of what she looks for as well. Yet._

“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise or insult your intellect. What else?”

She frowns, having momentarily lost track of the conversation.

“Focus, Ms. Simmons,” he scolds. “What else… turns you on?” He stands behind her, speaking close to her ear. “A little bit of fear, or let’s say, thrill?”

“Yes.”

“Pain?”

“Some.”

“Bondage?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” He comes to stand in front of her again. Then he takes two deliberate steps back, giving her some space. “Let’s cover a few more basics. Birth-control?” 

“Yes. I have it covered.” IUD, but she keeps that to herself. Too much information.

“Tested?”

She thinks about it, calculating. “About a year ago. Everything okay, No reason for that to change since.” The last part could be embarrassing, but considering her line of work…

“Last month. All good. Same since.” He pauses. “No mixing work and play, then, I presume?” he practically reads her mind.

“No.” Not until just then.

He draws closer, looking her in the eyes, carefully. “Still in?”

An opportunity to back out. But if she already is in this whole mess, she might just as well get at least something from it, even if it is just a one-time stand. The worst — hopefully — case, it sucks. She has a feeling it won’t.

She exhales, determined. “Yes, still.”

“Okay.”

He walks around her, with slow, measured steps. She can feel his eyes scanning her, her body tensing under the scrutiny in anything but an unpleasant way.

He stops when he makes a full circle. He tilts her chin up, the touch sending a shiver down her spine.

“Look at you,” he comments. “What this does to you.”

He lets his hand fall, his knuckles brushing against her body in a seemingly careless manner, bumping against her hardened nipple and she can’t hold back a gasp. He lingers before moving his hand away, trailing his fingers along her upper arm. His eyes grow darker.

He rests his hand on her shoulder, leaning closer.

“Are you wet already?” he asks in a low voice.

If she weren’t already, she would be now, as the question sets off a wave of pure desire. She swallows, reflexively shifting her stance.

He moves his hand away.

“Pick a safe word,” he says.

“Catalysis.” It is the first thing that comes to her mind, so one she would remember. It might be due to the place reminding her of a lab. And, she has a feeling this is going to speed up in a way comparable to the process.

“Catalysis,” he repeats. “Use it, I stop. Whenever.”

She nods.

His fingers trail across her back, igniting sparks under her skin even through the thin fabric of her T-shirt.

He idles at the hem of her trousers. “Give me your belt.”

She undoes it, pulling it from the loops and hands it over.

“Here.” He takes her by her elbow, leading her to the counter at the back wall.

“Your hands,” he says, patting the rail running along its length. “You can hold on to this.”

He loops her belt around her wrists as she rests her hands on the rail and fastens it. He takes his time appraising his work — and her — before he starts touching her, his hands light and teasing on her upper body, enticing caresses making her heart beat faster.

He cups her breast through her T-shirt, running his thumb over her nipple straining through the fabric, teasing, then pinching, making her knees buckle.

“Too much?”

“No. Please.”

He gathers her hair into his fist, pulling slightly as he bares her neck, his free hand attending to her other breast as his mouth descends on her skin. He sucks gently at first, then harder, scraping his teeth over the forming bruise and biting as he pinches her nipple, eliciting a cry from her throat.

“Still okay?”

“Yes.”

“You can call me sir, if that’s what does it for you,” he whispers into her ear, sucking another bruise on her neck as his hands slip under her top and unclasp her bra, then find her breasts, massaging and teasing, alternating between gentle and rough, making her gasp for breath. She can feel him hard against the small of her back, but he _tsks_ and moves away as she presses against him.

“Remember the safe word?” he asks.

“Yes. Catalysis. I don’t need it now.”

He traces the curve of her behind, the want in her getting sharper, darker. His voice is rough when he speaks. “What _do_ you need? I will give it to you. You only have to ask. Nicely.”

Jemma gulps. There is really no nice way to say it. Jemma, the decent Jemma Simmons would never utter it. But Jemma Simmons isn't all that proper. Not right now. 

“Fuck me. Please… sir.”

He clears his throat. “Since you _are_ asking so nicely… Ms. Simmons.”

He touches her again, his hands sure and demanding on her, just what she needs: no hesitancy, only perfect knowledge of what makes her react — or not react — and how, and she lets her mind shut off, giving herself over to the pleasure that starts building inside her. His fingers fill her and withdraw, again and again, while he teases her bundle of nerves, eliciting moans from her throat until she pleads for more. He pulls her back and nudges her legs to a wider stance, entering her at last, his hand on her hip steadying her, his grip tight enough to bruise, while he plays with her nipples and clit with his free hand as he thrusts inside her. Her knuckles turn white from how hard she holds on to the rail as he picks up the pace, the sharp contrast between his moving inside her and his hands rough on the outside spreading embers fires through her body until she is only a sum of sparks erupting all over her as she clenches around him and he follows not far behind, after riding through the last waves of her climax.

When they come back from the height, he unties her hands, letting her put her clothes back in some semblance of propriety while he does the same with his, both of them still catching their breaths.

Then he takes her hands in his and looks her in the eyes.

“Okay?” he asks.

“Yes, I’m okay.” Actually, she is a little more that okay, but… She manages a small smile.

He returns it, backing her against the counter, so she can perch on its edge and give her legs a bit of a rest.

“Relax,” he says. “Give yourself a few minutes. Then we have a plane to catch.”

***

Jemma Simmons is not a fool, not one to be swept off her feet by a round of, admittedly, very good sex.

Neither is she shy, innocent or ignorant — the things people like to mistake good, nice girls for. What she is is wired to find answers and, armed with knowledge, she has never shied away from seeking out experience. When realising some of her tastes might be rather unconventional, she did both.

Settling for decent and pleasant has been a choice, a more fulfilling one than any physical satisfaction with selfish ass-holes who couldn’t match her on an intellectual or emotional level.

How ironic then that this man — this man, who, among other things, tortures people for a living — has provided her not only with such intense pleasure, but also with a sense of…

_He leans against the counter beside her, rubbing her wrists, though traces of her belt are barely visible. It is an unexpectedly soothing act, and she loses track of the minutes going by as she composes herself, until he lets go of her hands._

_“I think we’ll be able to take off soon,” he says, “let’s go back to the airport.”_

_They lost two men, and the mood is sour, but at least the storm has cleared, and after a visit to the restroom and grabbing a bite, they are soon on the way back to the States._

…comfort, she supposes, that she feels calm and safe enough to fall asleep during the flight, despite being surrounded by a Hydra kill squad.

***

“A word, Ms. Simmons.”

As everyone files out of the office after the meeting with Whitehall and Dr. Lingenfelter — the purpose of which is somewhat unclear to Jemma, unless it was another test, since all it yielded was getting her to conclude that the Obelisk could be weaponised; that, and her learning something about what Hydra is up to to pass on to Shield — Bakshi holds her up.

Kenneth casts a worried glance at her, one saying _what have you done now_ , which Bakshi doesn’t miss, as Jemma shrugs.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Turgeon. Ms. Simmons will be along shortly, I only need her to clarify something.”

“Yes, of course, sir.” Kenneth can’t seem to scurry off fast enough.

Bakshi closes the door behind him.

“I was wondering, Ms. Simmons, where do you stand on repeating an experience? For or against it?”

Jemma knows very well what he is getting at, but she can play this game. “That depends on the kind of experience,” she replies.

“Yes?” he prompts, approaching her slowly.

“Whether it is a good or a bad experience, of course.”

“Of course.” He stops close to her, lowering his voice. “Well, I can think of one particular experience we have recently shared that I would consider worth repeating. Wouldn’t you?”

It would probably be wiser not to, if she thinks about it, but she agrees. “I would.”

“Tonight? If you are not otherwise engaged?”

“No. I mean, tonight is fine.” Jemma clears her throat. There went another chance to back out. Well, as they say, once doesn’t count. Maybe the second time will change her perception of it being worth repeating.

“Good.” He steps away from her. “I’m glad we are in accord. I’ll give you a lift from work, then.” He walks her to the door, opening it for her. “Have a good day, Ms. Simmons.”

***

Once inside his apartment — he let her pick between hers and his, but given that she wasn’t completely sure whether something in hers could betray her, she opted for his — he pulls her to him and kisses her. It starts unhurriedly, their lips moving together until he coaxes them apart, his tongue delving inside her mouth and she meets him stroke for stroke as he explores her, drawing back every so often to let her do the same until they are both out of breath.

She finds herself backed against the wall as they pull apart for air.

“Well, should’ve done that sooner,” he pants, grinning.

“Oh, God.” The words just escape her as she rests her head against the wall, catching her breath. Kissing shouldn’t be that good. And she has been kissed well before.

He chuckles and kisses her again and they keep at it while shedding the top layers of their clothes.

He presses his tie into her hand after he works it free.

“Hold on to this. We’ll need it.”

It is a dark promise, making her skin prickle with anticipation as he leads her to the bedroom, and he makes good on it after getting rid of the rest of her clothes.

Tied up, she is at his mercy as he explores her body, taking his time to bring out the raw need from within her and then sate it, thoroughly, until she ends up feeling boneless in his arms, slipping under.

***

There are things more intimate than having sex.

Sharing breakfast.

_The bed is empty when she wakes up, so she uses the bathroom and puts on her clothes. When she emerges from the bedroom, he is putting bacon and eggs on plates, and she stops in her track._

_He spots her before she can reign in her shock._

_“I have many talents,” he says, smirking. “Come, eat. I guess you will want to change before work? We’ll stop by your place.”_

 

First names.

_He suggests using those. When not at work, of course._

_“Think about it,” he says._

 

Simple gestures. Like opening the door for her.

_Actually, he has his escorts to do that for him, but he lets her go first._

 

Apartments.

_Just being in another person’s space._

_Next time, after disposing of anything potentially compromising, she lets him inside hers. She doesn’t have to, but not doing so would look too suspicious._

_She has been in his, after all._

_(Later, he asks her for a key. She knows better than to ask for his, but gives him one nonetheless.)_

 

Reciprocation.

_He has touched every inch of her, taking her to the edge and over, and then pulled her back. There is still more she wants as she curls up to him, though._

_He all but reads her mind. “What do you want?”_

_“Touch you.”_

_He runs his hand over her back in a caress, then lets it fall on the bed beside him._

_“Go for it.”_

_So she does, letting her hands roam as she nuzzles against his chest, then kisses and nibbles everywhere she can, repaying bruises for bruises, because she is hungry for him, still._

_He gathers her hair in his hand when she wraps his lips around him, taking him in her mouth. His free hand finds hers._

_“Safe sign. Squeeze once for okay, twice for too much and we stop. Okay?” he asks._

_She squeezes his hand once._

_His pull on her hair remains just on this side of painful as she works him off with her mouth. He pushes her, thrusting just as much as she can take, backing off instinctively each time before she even thinks of using the safe sign. It stirs the dormant heat inside her, her nipples hardening, moisture pooling between her legs while she finishes him off, wringing him dry._

_He pulls her up on top of him then and kisses her while he is still catching his breath, licking the traces of him off her where they escaped her. His hands find way down her body, to her nipples and lower, his fingers reaching between her folds, daftly bringing her over the edge once more, before she sinks into oblivion as he holds her close._

 

Playfulness.

_“Any plans for the weekend?” he asks on a Saturday morning._

_“Nothing in particular,” she answers, truthfully._

_“Then stay,” he asks, “if you want.”_

_So she does._

_Later, while relaxing on the couch, he surprises her with another question. “What would you be doing otherwise?”_

_Jemma shrugs. “Nothing.” Nothing worth mentioning._

_“Nothing, huh? I know a way or two to make you talk, you know?” he teases, although she hasn’t forgotten how very serious a matter that could be._

_“What if you don’t like what I say?” she asks._

_“Well, I also know of a way or two to shut you up,” he returns with another double entendre, his expression telling her he is perfectly aware of it. “So?”_

_“Boring things. Laundry. Cleaning. Maybe going for a run.”_ Poring over her research. Trying to discern possible Hydra agendas. Checking in with Shield if coming across anything worth reporting. _Those she doesn’t say out loud._

_“I thought you run on a treadmill.”_

_“Before work and when the weather is bad. I like to go outside if it’s nice,” she explains._

_“Hmm. I can think of a few other ways of exercise.” He grins, then reaches for her and pulls her on his lap. “But we can go out later, if you’d like.”_

 

Things as such are a reality check. It hits her hard, but is not unwelcome, making this — whatever _this_ is — somehow more real, tangible.

***

“Ms. Simmons. Walk with me,” Bakshi summons her in passing, half a dozen of guards trailing behind him.

 _Great. What now?_ Jemma doesn’t have much choice but to hurry along, matching his stride.

He opens the door to a nondescript interrogation room down the hallway.

“Go ahead,” he says to the guards, “I will be with you in a minute.”

So, at least it doesn’t sound like it is her hour of reckoning.

“I will be away for a few days, have an errand to run.” The way he says it as he closes the door, she pities his _errand_ already.

He stands close to her, but not touching. “Will you do something for me in the meantime?” he asks.

“What?” Jemma wants to know first.

He shifts closer, his voice a whisper into her ear. “Don’t touch yourself.” He pauses, gauging her reaction, as the words send a shiver through her body.

“I’ll make the compensation worth it when I get back,” he promises, then opens the door and leaves.

She stays in place and gulps, taking a few deep breaths to collect herself, before she goes back to work.

***

She can very well do without sex or pleasuring herself for quite a while, normally. But now, of course, it is all she can think about and it is driving her crazy.

He wouldn’t know, but she still doesn’t do it.

His errand takes a week. And a day, with him being busy to wrap thing up, she assumes. Eight days and a half, to be precise, until he stops by her desk at the end of the day. So, she might have been counting.

“Ready?” he asks. He smirks as she startles. “To call it a day, I mean,” he adds. “I’ll give you a ride.”

“Yes, thank you,” Jemma replies, remaining polite while she grits her teeth.

He seems thoroughly pleased with himself and his innuendos.

They make a bit of small talk on the way, although for the most part they pass the drive in silence, while a smirk never quite leaves his face.

Once inside his apartment, he wraps his fingers around her wrist and tugs her toward the bathroom. “Take a shower with me.”

It is pure torment: fingers brushing against skin while they help each other undress, then being so close and naked and touching under the hot stream of water — but the bastard makes sure not to touch her where she wants it most and keeps her hands off him while growing hard.

He laughs when she all but whimpers in frustration.

“Patience… will be rewarded.”

He picks up her shawl after they towel off and move to the bedroom. “Front or back?” he asks.

“Back.” It is harder, but she thinks she needs it that night.

He ties her wrists behind her back, loosely, but securely, and helps her settle back against the pillows as comfortably as possible before settling between her legs.

He kisses the inside of her knee, his eyes scanning her body, slowly, hungrily.

“Now, look at you,” he whispers. “All worked up. You haven’t touched yourself, have you?”

“No.”

He presses another kiss to the inside of her thigh, a little higher this time.

“But you’ve thought about it.” It is not even a question.

“Constantly,” she admits.

He hums and places more lazy kisses up her thigh, making her whimper.

“What do you need?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know. “Tell me.”

“Touch me.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere,” she grits.

He tsks. “So greedy.”

“Please.”

“Asking so nicely… all in good time.”

He continues with languid, teasing kisses, interspersed with occasional rough scrapes of his teeth, up her thighs, along her hip and over her belly, driving her mad with need before he finally takes mercy on her. He holds her in place while his tongue delves into her folds, stoking the fire inside her to a blaze, until he draws out her climax in bright burning waves, sucking on her until he wrings every last little shock out of her.

While she is catching her breath, he trails sticky kisses up across her belly to her breasts. He wraps his lips around her nipple, sucking gently, repeating it with the other, before he resumes his way up, her taste still in his mouth when he kisses her. 

He sits up then, pulling her in his lap and lowers her on his shaft. She can’t move much with her hands tied behind her, but that is the point, so he can go on with the slow torture: kissing her and sucking bruises into her skin, tweaking her nipples until they feel raw. Then his fingers find her sensitive spot, stroking her to another shattering orgasm, his teeth hard on her shoulder as she clenches around him.

He waits a while as she comes down from her high, then unties her hands and reties them in front, laying her down on her back. He holds her hands above her head as he sets a punishing pace, swallowing her moans with his mouth as he thrusts into her. She wraps her legs around his tightly, her heels digging into his thighs as the coil of heat starts building up inside her once more, and he reaches between them, assaulting the tender bundle of nerves yet again, pushing her over the edge just before he slams inside her one last time and comes himself, collapsing on top of her.

Shortly, he pulls out and rolls them on to their side.

“Enough?” he asks as he unbinds her hands, rubbing the length of her arms.

She only hums in answer, already drifting off as he pulls the blankets over them, and nestles against his chest.

***

Granted, he is a handsome, assertive man, and he can keep up with her intellect — mostly, without a hint of indignation when he can’t.

There is more to what draws her to him than that, more than the way he makes her body hum with delight.

He caters to her other needs, and as unexpected as his consideration might come, the physical aspect accompanied with so much emotion is a heady combination, one she hasn’t experienced before, providing her with a sense of warmth, and — however absurd it is — safety.

It sharply contrasts the cold calculation in his eyes and a streak of cruelty beneath, but perhaps the gentleness he shows her is what he himself might need as well.

It is all bound to come crashing down.

***

The blare of alarm is never a good sign, especially not in Hydra.

As Bakshi and Hydra’s head of security walk in with a squadron of guards, Jemma uses the few seconds of general confusion to execute the course of action she has gone over and over so many times that it kicks in without thinking, slipping something from her drawer to Kenneth’s unobserved while moving away from her desk as per instructions.

Morse waves a flexi screen in the air, announcing there is a mole among them.

“I specialise in finding them,” she says, “Bakshi here... well, he makes them suffer. Until that happens, no one leaves.”

Bakshi substantiates Morse’s words, leaving no doubt about repercussions: “Hydra does not tolerate traitors. Anyone caught in possession of contraband will be punished accordingly.”

It is not Jemma’s drawer where Morse finds the flexi screen, obviously.

Jemma throws up in the restroom afterwards, feeling sick with herself as Kenneth’s denials and pleas echo in her head. She has just caused two kids lose a devoted father, albeit one who thought an idea of killing billions of people to be cool. Yet, as the picture of him being dragged away replays itself in her memory, she can only feel relief that it wasn’t her.

She reassures herself that everything will be okay, only to be cornered by Morse when she exits the stall.

The terrifying woman presses her about whether she was working with Kenneth or planted the flexi screen, taunting her by wondering what she would find if she took a look at Jemma’s hard drive.

“Go right ahead. It's nothing but Hydra files,” Jemma dares her, knowing she can be sure at least of that.

***

The absence of bad dreams becomes apparent only when they return, perhaps due to the ordeal of almost being caught.

She jolts awake, gasping for air.

“What was it about? The nightmare?” Sunil asks.

“Drowning.”

_She is at the bottom of the ocean again, dark water all around her, a hand slipping out of hers…_

He turns on the light. The images in her head dissolve.

“Who’s Fitz?” He clarifies, seeing her startle: “You were talking in your sleep.”

“He was my best friend.” The past tense is a lie. Or is it? As an afterthought, she adds: “He stayed with Shield.”

Sunil makes a noncommittal sound. “What happened?”

She picks her words carefully, not to say too much. “We almost drowned. There was only enough air for one… Fitz went without. Brain damage,” is what she settles for.

_If she had swum faster…_

Jemma is not entirely positive he is satisfied with the explanation, but he doesn’t ask any further questions, pulling her close against his chest instead, and she lets his heartbeat soothe her back to sleep.

***

There is — has always been — suspicion on his side, wariness on hers. Sometimes barely perceivable, almost non-existent. Other times almost palpable, released through — though no less satisfying — rough, angry sex, with a shade of longing for that missing bit of trust.

Then shit hits the fan.

***

A “good morning” dies on Jemma’s lips when she wakes up to him pacing the room, his face a mask of steel. He watches her as she sits up in the bed, gathering the sheets around herself as if those are some sort of a barricade that could protect her from the wrath that is to come. She still looks him in the eyes, nevertheless, and waits.

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

She furrows her brows.

He stops her before she can feign not understanding what truth he wants.

“Don’t,” he says, “just don’t. I know you’ve been lying. I know you’ve been working for Shield. I want to hear it from _you_. Call it… an amnesty period. Today, till nightfall… whatever you have to tell me. After that… I can’t say I know what will happen.”

She swallows a lump in her throat. Nods.

She watches his back as he strides out of the room, before she moves. In the bathroom, she slumps on the toilet seat, putting her head in her hands.

This is it. She should run that very moment. She would probably be caught, but she should at least try. Her mind works frantically towards finding a way out: perhaps she could manage to send Shield a message, wait for someone to come and get her. However, one can never know these days whether Shield is preoccupied with something else more important, even though she would think she is valuable enough to not be simply left for the wolves — if not she, then at least the intel she could give up under pressure.

She almost hyperventilates, then gets a hold of herself, takes a shower and gets dressed.

He has made breakfast by the time she gets to the kitchen. They eat in silence. Clean up in silence. Linger in silence. Look through the windows. Read the papers.

It certainly isn’t a normal Sunday.

She regrets it for a moment, to the point of wondering why it is so, before she remembers.

She recounts all the things she should do and doesn’t.

She sits on the couch, folding her hands in her lap.

“I didn’t lie,” she says. “I _am_ loyal to science.”

He stands up, perhaps counts to ten, before he meets her eyes.

Jemma resumes. “I’m loyal to science.” She takes a deep breath. There goes everything. She doesn’t break the eye contact as she continues, though. “But I prefer if innocent people don’t get killed in the name of it.”

“Say it,” he grits through his teeth.

“I _have_ been working for Shield.”

He clenches his jaw. “So, it _was_ you, who alerted Shield to Donnie Gill.”

“Yes. They weren’t supposed to kill him.”

He scoffs. “I guess they thought him better dead than with us.”

She has nothing to counter that, no defence against it. Shield did exactly what Hydra would have done, but only Donnie could tell whether he would rather be dead than brainwashed, made to kill people. All that Jemma knows is that death, unlike brainwashing, cannot be reversed.

She swallows, and makes another admission: “The flexi screens were mine.”

“You set up Turgeon.”

Jemma nods. “His drawer was the closest.” She pauses, but doesn’t ask what happened to him. “I know what I condemned him to, and it makes me feel sick with myself, even if he _was_ less than scrupulous.”

There is a long silence, although he hardly takes his eyes of her the entire time. Defiantly, she does the same, as if it is some sort of a contest.

“Tell me,” he asks at last, “how have you been able to bear it for so long, since you are so devoted to goodness? You must have abhorred it. Working for the evil side, surrounded with such vile people?”

It is her turn to scoff.

A hint of curiosity flits over his face, before he schools his expression into an indifferent one.

“Believe me, no one is more surprised than me to find it not that hard at all. Maybe because, unexpectedly, people are not that _vile_ at all.”

Not Theo, who supports his unemployed daughter with his pay; not Evelyn from security, who spends every free moment with her elderly mother, who most days doesn’t even remember her name; not… a lot of other people. But those people are not who they are talking about, so she stays quiet and stares right back into his eyes. He looks away first, his Adam’s apple working as he clears his throat.

He walks to the window, then turns back towards her. “What was you mission?”

“Um. It was simple, really. Gather any intel I can.” Which wasn’t much, depending on how one looked at it.

“And?”

Jemma sighs. Naturally, he would infer there was something else. 

“And, I was hoping that with Hydra’s resources, I could find a cure, a treatment…”

“For your friend, the one with brain damage.”

“For Fitz, yes.”

Another pause ensues.

“Why you?” He asks then. “Though, I guess you are as unlikely spy as one comes.”

It sounds almost like a compliment. She grimaces. “Shield was — is understaffed. And I needed some space, to get away.”

He contemplates it, then nods.

He walks back and forth for a while and then sits down in the armchair across from her, running his hand through his hair.

“What the fuck am I going to do with you now?”

The wording demonstrates as much of a lack of control as she has ever seen with him, even though he doesn’t raise his voice. It is not a question, however, so she doesn’t respond as he drops his head in his hands.

Shortly, he straightens and stands up.

“I need some air,” he states. “I think you’d better not be here when I get back.”

He looks tired as he regards her for a moment, but he says nothing more, only turns and leaves.

***

What she should do is follow the protocol: contact Shield at the first opportunity and ask for extraction, drop everything and go. There is no doubt about it. Staying means risking questioning, maybe torture, brainwashing.

Even in retrospect, she can’t pinpoint exactly why, recklessly and irrationally, she doesn’t do what she should.

She half expects getting jumped and taken in already on the way back to her apartment, but she makes it without incident, without even being followed.

There is nothing different when she gets to work on Monday: no whispering behind her back, no sideways glances in her direction, nothing different from normal — although she is on edge all day, explaining it away as not having slept much due to feeling ill.

She awaits to be outed, wondering whether he will be there for what follows, too, whether he will do his job — making traitors suffer — himself or pass it to someone else, or maybe not even show up at all.

Instead, Bakshi all but vanishes. Supposedly, he goes away. When back in, he is hardly seen. Speculations circling around say something big is coming up.

The worst thing, besides the near constant apprehension, is that she still thinks of him when she slips her hand in her panties, giving herself no quarter in order to quench the burning need inside her, mad with herself, for it is only then when she can sink into fitful slumber.

Days pass. Then weeks. A month.

Nothing happens.

***

Her greeting — a social courtesy — remains stuck in her throat when they pass each other in the hallway, because his eyes are full of fury and something else she can’t place, something that could be either good or bad.

He yanks her into the nearest empty room without a word, taking a moment to check that the cameras are off, before his hands and mouth are on her, everywhere.

There is no softness this time, only desperation, and she lets herself only feel, not think. He is ruthless with her, but so is she with him, her nails scratching, teeth biting as he thrusts inside her, and they come hard, almost together, their mouths joining in a brutal kiss to silence each other.

They part without having spoken a word.

***

A few days later she wakes up in the middle of the night; she reckons he has made more noise than necessary upon arrival on purpose.

He shrugs off his jacket and lies down, spooning behind her on top of the covers. When she stirs, his arm tightens around her waist, pulling her closer to him.

“Go back to sleep,” he murmurs.

It is daylight when she wakes to the sound of her alarm-clock.

She must have eventually fallen asleep, though a sense of foreboding kept her lying awake for hours, listening to his breathing.

By the look of him, he hasn’t done any better.

“You haven’t slept.”

“You haven’t much either,” he replies.

For a minute she wants to give in to an illusion that there is nothing wrong in the world. Then her phone rings.

He reaches over, taking a glance at it — a blocked number — and hands it to her.

“Yes,” she answers.

“Can you talk?” asks Coulson on the other side.

She sits up in the bed. “No, I’m just getting up for work,” she says, which should clue him in to the fact that she can’t.

“We’re getting you out of there, now,” Coulson says. “A car will get you, like the one that occasionally picks you up for work. Just get in, act like you normally would. Leave everything, we have another agent undercover who will get your data and, if doable, your personal items. Understood?”

“Yes.” She hesitates a moment. “I’ll be in at the usual time.” With that she hangs up.

She scrambles off the bed, not daring to look at him.

“Richards has something to clear with me about our current project the first thing I get in,” she says as a way of explanation as she heads for the shower.

It is only when she closes the door behind her that it hits her: the relief — she is getting out. Which is ludicrous, because if she had been thinking clearly, if she hadn’t been stubborn and stupid, she could have been out long ago.

She ignores that other feeling, the one that makes her throat constrict, the one she can’t afford to analyse.

There are other things that whirl through her mind, the possible complications, because it might not go according to Coulson’s plan.

_So many things could go wrong; there are images of dead and injured in her head, a hundred variations of how it could go…_

She needs time to think, the time she doesn’t have; she will just have to go through it blindly and improvise according to what happens.

She concentrates on routine in order to collect herself: gets dressed, takes a bite, and pours herself a cup of coffee. There is an empty mug in the sink already, and a surge of panic seizes her while Bakshi is in the bathroom.

Telling herself that she can do it, that it is just a few minutes she has yet to get through and it will all be over, she manages not to show that she is screaming inside.

She forces her tone to be light as she heads for the door: “Shall we?”

He stops in the hallway behind her, though.

“You go,” he says. “I’ll wait a couple of minutes for my own ride.”

She freezes.

_Of course, of course he knows._

She turns around, slowly, and looks at him. _Could it be so easy? Will he simply let her slip out of Hydra from right under his nose, without consequences?_

His face doesn’t betray an emotion, other than deadly seriousness, as he steps into her space.

“For a bad liar, you are awfully good at it, Jemma Simmons,” he says as he tilts her chin up. He kisses her hard, shoving her against the wall, and she responds while tears brim in her eyes and there is a crushing feeling in her chest as if the world is falling apart at her feet.

He brushes her cheek with his knuckles after he breaks away, then nudges her towards the door.

“Go, now.”

***

She more stumbles than walks to the car, her vision blurred with tears she can’t stop from running.

The car pulls off the moment she gets inside.

“See, it went like clockwork,” Skye says, and something else, and the driver — an unknown guy, must be new to the team — replies something self-assured Jemma doesn’t register, perhaps because all of it is suddenly too much and she just collapses, sobs wrecking her body.

Skye puts Jemma’s seatbelt on for her and then just holds her, shushing her and telling her it is all over, that she is safe, that she will be home in no time and speculating about how hard it must have been on her and how relieved she must be.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Jemma says, when she calms down enough to speak. She really is happy to see Skye and not just because she doesn’t know how she would handle it if it was some strange agent. She peeks towards the driver as she sits up and tries to strengthen her clothes.

“Oh, that’s Mack,” Skye explains, “He’s our new — old — only mechanic, tech-sort-of-guy. He’s okay.”

“Hey,” Mack nods, “Alphonso Mackenzie. Glad to get you out of the lion’s den, agent Simmons.” He winks at her in the rear-view mirror.

Jemma can’t help a smile escaping her at that, as she is finding her bearings again. She fishes a Kleenex from her handbag to wipe her face and blow her nose, making herself feel more presentable.

When she tries to apologise for her conduct, Skye wouldn’t hear it.

“Don’t be silly, it’s totally understandable. You must be so relieved!”

“I am,” Jemma agrees. “I was so afraid,” she adds. “I thought I was a dead woman at least four times. That, or about to be brainwashed, happy to comply to who knows what.”

It is the truth. Just not the whole truth.

However, Skye nods sympathetically and doesn’t question her further, giving her another hug.

“You poor thing. Don’t worry, you are safe now, Jemma. Everything’s okay.”

***

Nothing is okay, though. Not really.

On the surface, everything goes as it is supposed to. She passes on the flash drive with the data she has managed to acquire and spends a rather long debriefing with Coulson, relaying everything she can think of that could be of any importance.

“You did a great job, Agent Simmons,” Coulson tells her in the end. He hesitates before continuing. “And Jemma, about the other thing… What you had to submit yourself to to maintain your cover…” He hurries up as she catches up to what he is referring to, “I just want to say I appreciate your sacrifices.”

Jemma is not sure what she should say to that; it is certainly not something she wants to talk about, and the least with Coulson of all people at that. She thanks him, as it seems to be the polite thing to do, and is then, to her relief, dismissed.

Only when she closes the office door behind herself a rush of embarrassment washes over her, quickly replaced by indignation and disgust at the thought that Coulson — Shield? Her own team? — was spying on her. Was her apartment bugged? With microphones? Cameras even?

_She should have gotten the hint when he knew about the car._

The thought of such an invasion into her privacy makes her feel sick. She dashes to the bathroom as she feels bile rising in her throat and locks herself in, dry-heaving into the sink, tears stinging in her eyes.

It takes her a few minutes just breathing slowly in and out, before she can think again. She rinses her mouth, drinks some water from the tap and wipes her face.

Perhaps she has jumped to conclusions. Perhaps Coulson only learnt of it through that other agent planted in Hydra, since her sleeping with Bakshi wasn’t exactly a secret. Yes, that had to be it. It had to be it, or she wouldn’t be able to look Coulson in the eye anymore.

Hence, she tells herself to consider the matter closed and doesn’t think about it anymore, not consciously, not for the most part. There are other, bigger things she is trying to not think about, which are more difficult to block out, after all.

Some of her personal items, the expendable ones, the ones meaningless to Hydra, are returned to her as promised, via the said other undercover agent whose name she still doesn’t know. It is beyond her clearance, she figures — though there aren’t supposed to be any clearance levels anymore. She doesn’t care, anyway.

To keep herself occupied, she throws herself back into work, which is both a salvation and a damnation. A salvation from thinking too much about other things. A damnation because it is a constant reminder of why she left in the first place, with Fitz so close, and yet so far away. She doesn’t need Mack telling her that she is not good for Fitz; she knows that, knows she is doing things wrongly, but she can’t help herself.

She shuts herself off to her own part of the lab and works, works and works, trying to not make it worse for Fitz, trying to disregard all the reminders of the old times the contact with her old teammates brings, because things can never be the same as they used to be, not just because of the sorrow and pain they have all gone through, but because of the empty holes in between that are only hers and shouldn’t even be there, but are still threatening to break her apart if she allows herself to notice them.

Everyone believes she has just got back into her old routine, and she wonders whether she has become that good at pretending or they just don’t know her that well.

Some things she takes up anew, such as training with May and Trip. It is her idea. She needs physical exertion as much as she needs the mental one, and no one objects when she explains it as wanting to be able to defend herself. Shield is still understaffed and desperate and one not being a hindrance is always appreciated.

She is good at it, too, and makes fast progress.

“We’ll make a field agent out of you in no time,” Trip compliments her and May doesn’t disagree.

***

All of it still doesn’t help her forget that on the other side, among the enemies they are fighting, not everything is pitch black. She recalls arguing with Fitz, in what seems like another lifetime, then, when it looked like the whole world collapsed with the discovery of Ward’s betrayal, that some people are just born evil.

She knows better now, for since then her world has turned upside down time and again and keeps spinning. Now she argues with herself, because she knows Hydra _must_ come down. But while she wishes it was done and over already because she is tired of this war, she can’t forget that not all people are utterly evil, quite the contrary. Then again, she just might have been inside Hydra for too long.

The fact that she can’t get Bakshi out of her head is another issue altogether. His absence is like missing a limb and it keeps her awake at night, because she can never pull the blankets around herself tightly enough to make her feel less alone.

The worst part about missing him is that she can’t tell anyone.

Not even Skye.

Especially not Skye, with her own ton of issues she doesn’t admit and which people fail to see or pretend not to notice. Jemma is guilty of the latter herself, but until Skye is ready saying something would do more harm than good.

Jemma doesn’t ask about Ward.

He is alive, she learns from a glance at Vault D’s video feed. That suffices.

Still, she joins Skye watching his morning routine, as punctual as ever, despite no light and no clock — the circumstances that make her uncomfortable, although she keeps her tone cold and detached as she makes the observation, for now she wonders whether Hydra hostages might not actually fare better.

Perhaps Skye’s bitterness, poorly masking the longing for the possibilities she has lost lurking just underneath, is what propels her forward later on when the feds march Ward out of the base for the transfer.

A threat spills from Jemma’s lips as she steps in front of Skye: “If I ever see you again, I will kill you.”

She is appalled at herself afterwards, unsure of where it came from, such an extreme reaction for the prim and proper Jemma Simmons.

She excuses herself as soon as she can and goes to her room. She closes the door, leans against it, and thinks. 

Maybe she did it for Skye.

Or maybe it was because of that fear still lingering in the back of her mind: the memory of falling through the air in the med pod and waking at the bottom of the ocean. Reason argues that the pod was made to float, even Fitz had pointed that out, and Ward must have known that. The irrational, scared parts of her, of them — she guesses Fitz feels the same, not that they talk much these days — insist on hating and blaming, however detrimental and wrong it may be.

Perhaps her lashing out was a product of some sort of subconscious need of hers to prove to the others that she is tough and unrelenting, that being undercover in Hydra has not affected her, that she has no weakness in that aspect, no soft spots for the enemy.

Although, there is no need to prove anything, is there? At least, there shouldn’t be. However, people tend to be most desperate to prove what they can’t.

Because it just might be that what she resents Ward is not his betrayal, not the med pod, but that, besides Fitz, he was one of the reasons she asked for an off-base mission, because she couldn’t stand patching him up after his suicide attempts anymore while feeling helpless and angry at the same time, torn between wishing she could do more to help him and wanting to just let him die.

The latter was the final straw, because that wasn’t her. Just like it isn’t like her to spew venom at him, begrudging perhaps his presence alone, a mockery in the face of absence she isn’t supposed to feel.

And so she is now the resident liar even though she is just not telling the whole truth, no matter that she can’t put the entirety of it into words anyway.

Is this what it boils down to: lies piling upon lies — or selective truths, lying to her friends and teammates and enemies alike?

This isn’t her.

Only it is. It is what she has become.

***

Jemma doesn’t have much time for self-reflection, for events start unfolding rapidly, too often without giving her a break to process them.

Ward escapes during the transfer, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Coulson sends Lance and Trip after him to honour his deal with the senator, but Ward evades them and disappears.

His idea of being helpful is to start passing pieces of intel and leaving random Hydra members all tied up as Christmas presents for them. Skye frowns upon it and compares him to a cat bringing in dead birds, but the intel and the captives are too important not to make use of. With that and their own digging, the fight against Hydra keeps their hands full.

Since there aren’t enough people on hand, no one capable is exempt from participating in missions and going out in the field becomes regularity for Jemma.

In the blur of assignments and lab work and missions, weeks fly by. Yet, there is one mission that stays with her, a cause for more sleepless hours, though not necessarily in a bad way — not at all, actually.

It happens during raiding a Hydra compound, vacated in a hurry just before Shield could catch them at work, which would be a huge victory for them — that is, if they had enough people to take on their numbers. As it is, only a small team comprised of Trip, Skye, Lance and Jemma is sent in — Jemma because there is supposed to be a science lab inside. Her task is to find out as much data of what was going on in there as possible while the others look for any other clues about Hydra’s plans.

The compound is some sort of a warehouse, comprised of several buildings of mismatched sizes, connected with a labyrinth of passages. The plan is for Jemma and Lance to sneak in at the back while the other two would work their way in from the front side, dealing with the remaining guards. There are more of the latter than anticipated, though. The back, however, looks deserted, and Jemma says she can handle it on her own until the others deal with the threats in front and meet her.

Once inside, she proceeds cautiously in the direction of the alleged lab, straining her eyes for any movements in the dim light of the long narrow hallways, echoing with eerie silence, until the sounds of a faraway fighting reach her ears, which makes her oddly calmer, though it makes it harder to listen for noises in her vicinity.

She can already see her destination a little farther down the empty hallway when a thump comes from somewhere inside the light-less passage that joins the one she is in from the left just as she passes it. She aims her ICER in the direction of the sound, but before she can discern anything through the shadows, someone grabs her wrist from behind, the ICER clattering to the ground.

A hand over her mouth silences her scream that dies in her throat anyway, because she recognises the assailant even as he spins her around to face him. He slants his mouth over hers, crushing her to him as he backs her against the wall, his fingers fumbling with her ear-piece, turning off the comms. “We don’t have much time,” she whispers as he slides his hands under her shirt while she is already undoing his belt.

She should be afraid, certainly, but right then all she knows is need.

He presses his fingers inside her folds, giving her a few urgent strokes while helping her to free her leg from her trousers, then picks her up, pinning her against the wall as he slams inside her.

She wraps her legs around him and buries her face into his shoulder to stifle her moans, allowing herself one single whimpered ‘please’ to let him know how much she needs this, meeting his thrusts. His hands find a way under her sweater, his grip rough, perhaps enough to leave bruises, a memoir for the next few days.

He reaches between them as she digs her nails into the skin on the nape of his neck, drawing blood just as she bites her bottom lip bloody to keep silent as he brings her off in what has to be a record time, the danger of getting caught an additional stimulus. He drops his mouth to her neck, just below the collar, scraping his teeth over the tender skin and biting as her muscles clench around him and he follows, shooting his load inside her.

They hurry to pull apart and arrange their clothes back in place. She has enough sense to turn on the comms in the process, voices in her ear-piece already frantically asking what is going on on her end and whether she is okay. Her voice sounds rough as she confirms: “I’m fine. Just had a bit of a scuffle. Comms got switched off, I guess.”

 _“All right, Hunter’s on your way,”_ Skye informs her while Jemma straightens up her clothes.

Bakshi points to the floor a little away from them where she only now notices a silhouette of a man knocked out. _Expendable enough to be left behind_ , Jemma thinks. “Your work,” Bakshi mouths and then backs away, disappearing in the direction she got in.

Jemma grabs her ICER from the floor and shoots a round at the unconscious man to make it believable just before Lance rounds the corner, the mercenary hardly making any noise.

“You all right?”

“Yeah.”

Lance does not mention either her unsteady voice or her flushed state and breathlessness as he spots the Hydra goon on the ground.

“Good job! I guess the training’s paying off,” he comments.

“Guess so,” she quietly agrees, then points with her head towards the lab. “Shall we go on with what we came for?”

***

She doesn’t expect to see him again any time soon, if ever.

Life goes on as usually, that is: highly unpredictably.

Days, she spends working on whatever needs to be done. Despite the exhaustion, most nights she can’t fall asleep without thinking of him and the way his touches, a thousand of them, felt on her body, anywhere, everywhere.

By a stroke of luck they make a major breakthrough with the carving compulsion induced by the GH formula they have been trying to solve for months. As new cases of people driven to visualise the mysterious graphics occur, they can finally answer one of the questions: the writing is a city blueprint.

Jemma’s other questions remain unanswered. Why has Coulson been hiding it for so long? How can he be sure the compulsion is gone? What if they — or anyone — aren’t supposed to find the city? And many more.

She doesn’t get to think of what else Coulson might be hiding from them as Ward’s newest ‘present’ arrives.

Jemma isn’t even aware of it until Coulson summons her to his office.

“We have a prisoner in Vault D,” he announces without preamble.

Her first thought is that they have recaptured Ward, but Coulson beats her to saying so. “It’s Sunil Bakshi.”

If her shock shows, Coulson doesn’t mention it.

“I don’t want you anywhere near him,” he tells her.

“Of course, sir.” Jemma agrees, automatically.

“We have no way of knowing for certain that you weren’t brainwashed,” Coulson continues, “I don’t want to risk the chance of triggering it in case you were. Do you understand?”

It feels like a punch in the gut, but she agrees again and nods. “Yes, of course.”

“Okay. That would be all, agent Simmons.”

She doesn’t know what is worse: Coulson’s coldness and distrust, the possibility of actually having been brainwashed — she wouldn’t remember it, would she? — or _him_ being just a few meters below her feet in that horrid cell Ward had almost died more than once.

It makes sense that they will keep such a high-profile captive here instead of handing him off to the feds like the others.

May would do the interrogations, Jemma supposes.

It is none of Jemma’s business. She will just stick to her work. She definitely won’t do anything stupid.

Still, her thoughts keep straying, because she knows things she hasn’t told Coulson, or anyone, things she isn’t going to tell, for they would only make matters worse. She _knows_ she wasn’t brainwashed. Well, she is ninety-nine point nine percent sure, she admits to herself. It is enough for her. And, she walked out of Hydra, although that would definitely be a red-flag for the others, a fact screaming against her.

She tells herself to forget it, that she doesn’t owe him squat.

She doesn’t sleep well that night, tossing and turning in her bunk.

Skye eyes her with sympathy in the morning. “This must be hard on you,” she says and pours her coffee.

Jemma shakes her head and thanks her for the beverage.

As the day goes on, a plan forms in her head, the details solidifying as pieces of puzzle falling into place as she works out the options and the risks — the former are few, the latter enormous. It could be just a mind exercise, something she might or might not follow through.

However, when she wakes the next morning long before the time her alarm is normally set for, she takes it as a sign.

She makes her way to the main operations room. Skye’s instructions run through her mind as she sets to work, ticking off the check list in her head. The practice she has kept up with even after there was no Skye to force it upon her makes it fairly easy. It is a kind of a project. And Jemma is very good with projects. She only needs five minutes to finish.

Then she goes downstairs, picking a set of tac-gear clothing and footwear that looks about the right size on the way.

The tablet with controls for Vault D is in its place next to the door, the security features unaltered, which is rather sloppy, considering Coulson doesn’t want her anywhere near. Underestimating her, she suspects. She taps in the commands and the door opens.

She lays the items she has brought on the chair, before making the laser grid transparent.

Bakshi is standing a little away from it, surprise evident on his face when he sees it is her.

“Don’t say a word,” she tells him as he makes a step forward, about to do just that. A precaution, though without guarantees.

But he obeys.

She points to the door. “Go left and then again at the end of the hallway. There is a back exit, it opens without a code from the inside.” She checks the time. “You have eight minutes before the security comes back on.”

She waits long enough for him to nod, then walks back up the stairs, switching off the laser grid when she reaches the top. She returns the tablet in its place and goes back to her room. She gets under the covers and closes her eyes, though there will be no more sleeping for her that night.

The security and camera feeds turn back on at 4.30. That gives him about an hour of a head start. A little or a lot.

She gets up as her alarm sounds, hearing the others start milling about, and goes about her morning routine.

For a short while it is like any other day.

A smart person would have run. She thought about it, but it just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a matter of not getting caught, just not getting caught in time. Now, there is no point in hiding.

Jemma emerges from the bathroom, dressed and ready for the day, when all hell breaks loose.

Skye, always the first one at the monitors, announces Bakshi’s escape. While she’s relaying her findings, Coulson starts issuing orders. He dispatches a team after Bakshi, and then gets everyone else packing up everything to move to another location, as it is reasonable to assume that the Playground won’t stay secret much longer.

It doesn’t take long for them to find their prime and only suspect.

May takes Jemma to the interrogation room and locks her inside, as per Coulson’s orders, until he has time to ‘deal’ with her. At least she leaves her a bottle of water, which might signal a long wait, but is also more than people usually get in such a situation.

Only a little over an hour passes when Coulson comes in, immediately launching into a soliloquy of questions she isn’t meant to answer, not that he lets her, anyway, as he rants on, wondering how she could have done such a thing, whether she was brainwashed or if she just got so warped during her stay in Hydra. He expresses his general disappointment in her and regrets his decision to send her undercover, at which point Skye appears, darting a hostile glance in her direction, informing him that she, as in Jemma, also deleted her backup, before rushing off.

On principle, Jemma has to agree with Coulson that _that_ was rather ungrateful of her, since it was Skye who taught her those particular skills, though for another purpose: for her safety, before going undercover. To her credit, Jemma has picked up a few things on her own since then.

At the end, Coulson asks the one question that matters, the only one she is apparently expected to answer.

“Why?”

Jemma has given plenty of thought to that very question. It would be easiest to say that it indeed was a result of confused feelings, the undercover work and the sexual relationship having gotten the better of her. The truth, however, is that it wasn’t about _him_. It was about her.

Ever since returning to Shield, she hasn’t felt like she fits, not as before. The Shield she used to believe in has become full of secrecy, her questions denied answers, the big picture ignored, only the convenient parts taken into an account, all of it going against everything she is as a scientist. The rules have changed and following them doesn’t make her feel nice anymore, like it used to not so long ago when she told Skye so. And the difference between Shield and Hydra she could see up close was barely more than the names and a few catch phrases.

She doesn’t tell that to Coulson, neither does she answer his question, posing one of her own instead.

“Does it matter?”

“Does it matter!” Coulson looks momentarily thrown off, perhaps more by her being calm and collected as she refuses to avoid eye contact than by the question. In any case, he finds his footing soon enough, and showers her with still more rhetorical questions: whether she gave as much as a thought to the consequences, to how many people — all of them — could have died, herself included, or she could have been taken hostage — she does appreciate at least that little bit of concern for her — let alone that they still _can_ all die as Hydra might descend upon them any minute now, thanks to her.

She did think about all those questions and more. Yet, she went out on a limb and let the devil out of his cage. And for now, no one has died.

When Coulson is done, she asks only one thing: “What are you going to do with me?”

The answer to that question terrifies her now more than on another, recent occasion when she didn’t ask it. Then at least she knew what could happen. Now, anything is possible.

Coulson shakes his head.

“I don’t know yet.”

He leaves, but returns before long. He places his hands on the table, leaning towards her, and sighs. “Since you have thoroughly erased your records, we have nothing on you. We have nothing on Bakshi, either. There is one of the most dangerous Hydra terrorists on the loose and whatever he does is on you, too. Bear that in mind. You were once a valuable member of this team, so this is what is going to happen: Skye is packing up what she can of your personal belongings, and after May searches you, you will leave. You will not contact any member of Shield, but we will keep tabs on you, don’t think we won’t. If you contact Hydra in any way you will be considered one of them and treated accordingly. Is that understood?”

It is one of the better options she had in mind. She swallows and nods. “Yes, I understand.”

“Good.”

Coulson walks to the door, letting May in, as he leaves the room.

May doesn’t say a word while patting her over. She checks Jemma’s wristwatch and tells her to turn out her pockets, but doesn’t catch on to the double belt buckle hiding a memory card. Not that Jemma intends to use it for nefarious purposes, but to hell with losing all her life work to Shield.

May opens the door, picks up Jemma’s handbag and a duffel-bag sitting on the floor just outside and hands them to her, and signals for Jemma to go ahead.

They are all watching as May walks her down the corridor, and despite expecting it, the resentment and anger she sees in their eyes hurt.

Fitz is the only one whose expression doesn’t scream ‘traitor’ at her; only, his sad resignation is even worse. She is likely not supposed to stop or talk, but she halts as she reaches him, nevertheless.

“Fitz…” she gives him a tentative smile. “Get well.”

She moves on before May or Coulson lose their patience, but Skye’s glare as Jemma passes her make the words spill out on their own accord: “I hope you learn to see the shades of grey like you used to, Skye, because nothing is black and white. Think about that.”

She would like to say more, but knows better and moves on before Skye can respond.

Coulson stands at the door as it opens. Jemma turns back as she crosses the threshold, meaning to thank him for everything, for the time when things were good, but instead tells him something else.

“If you think I’ll be used as bait, think again.”

***

A year or two ago she would have been lost. But she is no longer that helpless, sheltered girl who had spent all her days with her head in her research, clueless about so many other things, things she didn’t think she would ever have to worry about, back then when her world seemed nice and orderly.

Since, she has almost died, twice, and thought she would more times than she can recall.

Now, she doesn’t even exist.

She uses the little cash she has for a bus ticket. It suffices to get her to her nearest drop box, where she finds more — not a lot, just enough to get by for a while — and two sets of identity papers, one of those Skye had made for each of them after erasing their identities from the system, in case they ever needed them in the outside world.

Jemma feels a pang of guilt, for Skye had done much more than that: she had taught her quite a bit of the process as part of her preparation for going undercover and imposed on her as much of the trickiest practice of covering the electronic tracks behind herself as she could think of, so Jemma would have been as equipped with the knowledge to help her stay undetected as possible. And for the most part, it worked like a charm.

Nonetheless, Jemma kept quietly watching and learning whatever she could, both in Shield and in Hydra, which prompted her to get herself a couple of identities only she would know about. Although those Skye had created are still perfectly valid and usable, since Jemma deleted the data of them in Shield’s database alone, Jemma goes and picks up hers as well and settles on one of them.

A week later, Carol Wilson introduces herself to a town in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, where a hospital lab is desperately looking for a new technician. In a place everyone wants to get out of, they accept her gladly, without inspecting her new resume all that closely.

The job doesn’t pay well and she could do it with her eyes shut, but it is enough for a rent, bills, and necessities, and it is a distraction.

For, when Jemma — Carol settles into a tiny apartment above the smaller one of the town’s two florists and meets all her new co-workers in the hospital, the reality of the situation hits her.

As it looks like, she has nothing: her family thinks she is dead, and her surrogate family, the agency she has dedicated so much of her life to, threw her out after she had betrayed them.

She has never had less.

Jemma might have craved this while amidst danger and lies: a simple job and regular people — good, bad, and those in between — around her. Now, she might understand why everyone wants to leave such places.

Then two things happen.

An old lady crossing the street at the same time as Jemma mistakes her for her granddaughter, inviting her for a coffee, and sticks to the invitation even after she clarifies the error. And Jemma — well, Carol — makes a friend.

Sometime later the media erupt with pictures of two people, the headlines variations on one and the same topic: _Conspiracy Uncovered: Outcast Agency Averts General Public Danger_ and _Daniel Whitehall Captured,_ _New Shield Director Hill Mops Up Hydra_ , and the like.

And all Jemma can do is wonder what has happened.

The public excitement dies down in a week or so as the media get bored of rehashing the same tailored stories, filtered and exaggerated and ever so unsubtly evasive, speaking of intelligence gathered from confidential sources. They sate Jemma’s hunger for information only partially, since they don’t mention what interests her most. There is no word of her team, the people she still thinks of as her friends, not even of Coulson.

Time goes on, though, not concerning itself with her questions.

She knows that someday she will have to make new plans for the future, because as uncomplicated as this version of living is, it is not something she could do forever, not without something inside her dying. She needs challenge and adventure — that is why she had dragged Fitz into the field with her in the first place — even though the last one did not end very well.

Still, she is not ready for that yet, as if she is waiting for something without knowing what it is.

Meanwhile, she makes an effort to discover small pleasures: good places to eat or just have a coffee, a lovely park a few blocks from where she lives, a good jogging track, a scenic path for taking a walk, lined with trees whose red- and brown-coloured leaves rustle under her feet.

***

It is a chilly evening with a promise of the winter’s first snow in the air and she stops at a charming little coffee shop on the way from work, a place she has found to be a good spot for unwinding when she isn’t quite up to being alone.

She is sitting in a corner, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, when someone asks with a voice from the past: “May I join you?”

And she looks up and there is Skye, as large as life, already sliding on the chair across hers. “Don’t worry, it’s just me. Besides, I don’t work for Shield anymore.”

“What?” It’s a stupid thing to say for a start, but Jemma’s brain momentarily short-circuits.

“Yeah. It kinda didn’t work for me anymore. I’m developing a security system for Stark now, something that even I couldn’t hack. Except that I could, of course, and the old man knows it.”

Jemma squints at her: “You call Tony Stark, the Iron Man, the old man?”

Skye laughs. “Yeah. He glares and growls, but he likes it.”

Considering it is Skye, Jemma can very well believe it. She smiles.

“How did you find me?”

Skye sighs. “A little bit of good ol’ fashioned hacking and then a lot, and I mean a lot, of cross-referencing between the sort of work I thought you’d do and people fitting your description with all the variables… Gotta give it to you, you were damn hard to find. Remind me to never ever teach you anything again.”

Skye giggles, probably at the guilty expression she must see on Jemma’s face. “Just kidding, I’m kinda proud of such a good student.”

“Thanks.” Jemma smiles back. “So, what are you doing here? I mean, it is good to see you…”

“You mean if I have an ulterior motive.” Skye shakes her head. “I just stopped by on the way to — somewhere. But I wanted to make sure it’s you and say hello.”

She pauses. “You know, you can use you real name, if you want. Since I erased all of our IDs from the system, they’re really just blank pages, and we can all go by our own names. And Shield’s in everyone’s good graces again, so we don’t even have to fake CVs. Well, for the most part. I’ve actually put a little something back in the system, to begin with. So, you know, in case blood-work or whatever you’re doing these days gets too boring, you’ve got options.”

Skye gets up. “Anyway, I gotta run, but I’ll keep in touch. And, Jemma, it’s nice to see you too.”

She picks up two coffees to go on the way out and Jemma is left staring at the back of her vanishing through the door and just like that Skye is gone like she appeared.

Jemma remains seated, finishing her beverage while trying to process what has just happened, a part of her in doubt whether it wasn’t just her imagination and wishful thinking getting the better of her.

For a while, nothing changes.

She puts off altering this life she has started: it is just fine and change might not be for the best.

As holidays approach, she takes on more hours at work instead of her colleagues, so they can spend more time with their families.

Christmas goes by, then New Year. Days pass, one much like the next, apart from the changes in the weather.

Something slowly comes to boil just beneath her skin until the temptation is too strong.

At the end of March, she leaves Carol Wilson behind and moves back east, accepting a position offered at a research lab in New York, affiliated with Stark Industries, where they welcome her with open arms.

Settling in is easier than in Nebraska, perhaps because of the vibrant city and dynamic, challenging work.

Skye finds her soon, ambushing Jemma during lunch.

“I was on the lookout for you,” she explains. “Thanks God, it’s so much easier when I know _who_ it is I’m looking for.”

She fills her in on everyone. Trip remained a field agent with Shield and Coulson stayed on as an adviser, along with May. Skye doesn’t say so, but Jemma gets an impression that Coulson doesn’t actually do much advising.

When Skye mentions that Lance and Bobbi went back to Europe to help deal with Hydra overseas, Jemma frowns: “Bobbi?”

“Bobbi Morse, she was the other mole. The head of security?” Skye explains.

“What!?” Jemma exclaims. “I was terrified of her.”

Skye chuckles. “Yeah, she mentioned something like that. But seriously? You had the big bad wolf wrapped around your little finger and you were scared of _her_?”

Caught off guard, Jemma is at a loss for a response, her throat going dry all of a sudden. Skye, however, pauses only briefly and then continues: “Anyway, we’re kinda working for the same company again, isn’t that cool?”

“Yes, it is.” Jemma nods and smiles, grateful for the change of topic.

Fitz and Mack are both at Stark, too, Skye informs her, and Jemma is glad to hear Fitz is doing really well now — not as before, but none of them are the same, after all. Skye gives her his number and email address and tells her he would be happy to hear from her.

Skye doesn’t talk much about herself, but in the way she talks and laughs Jemma can see the Skye she used to be before all the darkness and heartbreak. Jemma doesn’t ask her about it, feeling it is not the time for that, at least not yet. Someday, though, because Skye says they should see each other more often and leaves Jemma ways to contact her before leaving.

Jemma tries to make the best of this new start, yet another one, sometimes wondering whether it is the last one or will there be more of those.

She finds new things to enjoy, makes a few new friends.

She even attempts dating after some time. Once she is charmed enough to go on several dates with this one guy, Andrew, with a wit sharp enough to follow hers and a warm smile that makes her think it is a good idea to sleep with him. When she comes home afterwards, she stands in the shower until the water runs cold, trying to wash off how it felt, not because the sex was awful — it was quite pleasant, or so it would have been, had she never discovered that there is more to it, that pleasant isn’t enough.

She breaks the relationship off the next day, without any drama on either side, and she considers it fortunate.

The experience teaches her a lesson and she puts dating on hold, for she believes she deserves better than to settle for less than she craves.

Her work and friendships fulfil her life well enough, and though she still feels a void in the space around her and somewhere inside, an emptiness as if after something lost, she also feels a certain kind of peace that comes from knowing oneself, perhaps for the first time in her life.

So she goes to work and runs and goes to the cinema and visits galleries, sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend, and reads and listens to music and does all those little things that make up a life.

One day, she calls Fitz, and although the conversation is somewhat strained, she is glad that he sounds okay and even enthusiastic when he talks about his work. Before hanging up, he asks her if she is happy, and she tells him she is fine.

And that she is.

***

The year grows old once more, the days shortening, and it is dark outside when she gets off work.

She is late that Wednesday night, having stayed at work to finish a part of her current project, and tiredness makes her less aware of her surroundings that usually. Her building is in a decent neighbourhood, though, and comes with a concierge, so digging for the keys inside her purse as she steps out of the elevator and heads for her apartment is normally an okay thing to be doing.

Something halts her steps before her door, a certain kind of presence that makes her pulse quicken.

The man leaning against the wall next to her door straightens when she looks up.

Then everything is a little fuzzy for a few moments. She makes those remaining few steps as her knees go weak and tries to unlock the door, almost dropping her keys. He covers her hand with his, warm and steadying, and turns the keys with her. She stumbles inside, lets her keys and purse clatter to the floor, hardly recognising the sound she makes as her own as she reaches for him to pull him to her, though she really doesn’t need to, because his hands are already on her, in her hair, on her hip and the door shuts close with a thud as he backs her against It.

His mouth crashes on hers, the kiss all teeth and tongue and throaty sounds, the brutality of it finally getting the message through to her brain that it is real and everything clears, the world under her feet stabilising even as it spins.

Chances of making it to the bedroom are non-existent and they end up on the floor, strewn with the discarded half of their clothes. He drives inside her hard and, fast, making her writhe under him, begging for something she can’t name, but she doesn’t have to, because he understands.

“Shh, Jemma, it’s okay,” he whispers into her ear, and: “It’s me. Just let go.”

And she remembers that with him she can. And so she does; she simply surrenders as he pins her wrists above her head, anchoring her to then and there, to the pure sensation of the white-hot need burning through her body as he winds her up as tight as a cord that could snap with a single stroke. Instead her body vibrates in a glorious downward scale as he pushes her over the edge, her muscles clenching around him, feeling him pulsate inside her as he finds his own release.

Eventually they get up from the floor, shedding the rest of their clothes. A bathroom break turns out to be not so short a detour on the way to the bedroom as he joins her in the shower, reminding her of a whole other meaning a hot shower can have, which requires a stop at the kitchen for a late snack.

Later, when they do make it to the bedroom, he finally sates her desire to touch and be touched, the nothingness that has been wrapped around her dispersing as he makes sure to caress every inch of her body. His fingers run feather-like trails over her, alternating with the hard grasp of his hands, just on this side of painful, igniting a fire inside her. He sucks bruises into her skin and then rains velvet kisses over them, until he takes her apart bit by bit and weaves the parts back together with liquid pleasure coursing through her body. Then he makes her look at him, his fingers entwined with hers, pining her hands on either side of her head, as he rocks inside her, impossibly slowly, until she loses herself with him somewhere deep, only that it is okay, because she knows exactly where she is when she falls asleep, found and complete, as he pulls the covers over them and wraps her in his arms.

She can’t have slept more than a few hours when she wakes up, the night still dark this time of year, though it is nearly the time for her to get up. The bed beside her is empty, but still warm, his departure perhaps what has woken her.

There is a sheet of paper on the pillow, torn from the pad she keeps on the nightstand. The note says: _Dinner tomorrow? I’ll pick you up at 7._

Jemma scoots over to the vacated space and dozes off for the time remaining until her alarm-clock goes off.

***

She gets through the day with the help of copious amounts of coffee and then collapses into her unmade bed in the evening and falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow, repeating the drill the next day — sans as much coffee and well rested after a good night’s sleep, although disregarding the remainders of his touch still lingering on her skin is not entirely successful.

Sunil is just a little early, knocking straight on her door, though the concierge shouldn’t let people up without checking with the residents.

He flashes her s smug grin as she points it out: “Well, I can be very persuasive.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” she says, smiling, as he kisses her cheek in greeting.

She waits until they are in the car and he pulls off before mentioning what has been on her mind.

“We don’t have to do this. The dinner.”

He raises his eyebrow at her.

Jemma explains. “What I mean is: Shield is keeping tabs on me, and if I hang out with — I quote: members of Hydra, I’ll be considered one of them and treated accordingly, end of quote.”

“Then it’s fortunate that I am not one of those, as they’d put it, Hydra terrorists.”

“Huh?” She frowns, puzzled, because the last time she checked…

He smirks at her expression. Then he grows solemn. His eyes focus on the road as he elaborates.

“Long story short: after that stunt your friend pulled over me and my short visit with Shield, Mr. Whitehall seemed to have lost his trust in me. I found myself on the priority list of people to be made to comply. When I eluded that, I got promoted to the assassination list.”

He pauses.

“I was willing to sacrifice a lot. And I knew all along that my loyalties weren’t returned in equal measure, not that it mattered. But when Whitehall turned against me for something I _didn’t_ do… I made an offer that neither the feds nor Shield could refuse, in exchange for a clean slate.”

He glances at her. “So, as it happens, you are having a dinner with a perfectly respectable citizen.”

The teasing undertone of the last few words disperses the seriousness of the revelation, and Jemma chuckles, replying in the same manner.

“Well, what a relief.”

***

They are seated in a secluded corner that gives them as much privacy as one can get in a restaurant.

After they order and their waiter leaves, Jemma has to ask. “So, how did you find me?”

Bakshi sighs. “With great difficulty.”

Jemma smiles. “Yes, Skye said the same thing.”

He frowns, confused for a moment. “Ah, the hacker. Though, why would _she_ have to look for you?”

“Um, I wasn’t exactly welcome at Shield after…” Jemma trails off. “And I went by another name for a while.”

“Well, that explains why you virtually disappeared,” he deduces. “I thought Shield stashed you somewhere,” he makes air-quotes with the hand resting on the table, “safe. And I had rather limited resources for a while, since I had to give up the bulk of them as a part of my deal. Fortunately, the second try did yield a Jemma Simmons with your particular sphere of competence.”

“Second try?”

He grins. “I don’t give up that easily, as you should know.”

“Oh, I know,” Jemma confirms.

“But, I must say, you are very good at hiding, Dr. Simmons.”

“Well, someone did say to me that for a bad liar, I was very good at it.”

He chuckles. “And you are. You make one hell of a spy.”

“Thank you.” She supposes it is a compliment.

“I mean it. Any agency should be lucky to have you. Provided you’re actually on their side, of course.”

“Of course.” Jemma smiles.

He studies her for a few moments. “I like that.”

“What?”

“You, smiling.”

Jemma is not sure how to respond to that. Then it strikes her: “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

“And failing,” he deadpans, but he is smiling at her, and Jemma laughs and takes a sip from her glass so she doesn’t have to reply.

The atmosphere lightens up considerably after that, and for the rest of the meal they talk easily, his hand occasionally brushing hers across the table.

She recounts leaving Shield and her so-called adventure in Nebraska and the lack of challenge in it. In turn she learns he runs his own private investigation company which has come to stand well but stays inconspicuous enough. A fitting work for him, she figures, and one he would excel at. The kind of work that could become a cover, she knows; the possibility that would have bothered her once now doesn’t, if only for the fact that she knows what she is in for.

He slips occasional compliments into the conversation, his eyes glinting with amusement and desire. Her body reacts correspondingly, which, of course, he is fully aware of.

They don’t delay leaving after they have eaten.

He takes her hand in his on the way to the car.

“Your place or mine?”

She shrugs. “Either is good.”

“Mine, then,” he decides, “it’s only fair.”

***

He takes her face in both hands when he closes the apartment door behind them and kisses her, turning an initially soft kiss into a long and thorough one.

“You know, I’ve already been seduced,” Jemma teases as they break for air.

“By anyone I know?” he enquires. He turns her around, nibbling at the spot below her ear while he slides her coat off her shoulders and hangs it.

“Probably. Tall, dark, handsome, dangerous. A little terrifying.”

“Only a little?” he whispers into her ear.

She looks at him over her shoulder. “Just enough,” she replies.

His eyes darken at that and he swallows, turning her around to kiss her again before he pulls her towards the bedroom.

That night he peels her clothes off her tantalisingly slowly, letting her do the same with his, before taking command of her body as she arches into every touch, his hands and lips and teeth sliding over the markings he made two nights ago and bringing them to life. He unravels her and with her, once, twice, and then she loses count.

She is momentarily disoriented by the strange room and brightness when she comes to, until the warm cocoon of sheets and his body around her registers with her mind, and she remembers it is Saturday and she has nothing to do except relax. She dozes off, she guesses, for she is brought back to consciousness with lazy touches, his lips trailing over her jawline. They kiss languidly as he turns her towards him and hooks her leg over his hip, entering her. He takes her lazily, spilling inside her as she spasms around him. He stays inside her awhile, kissing her, before he pulls out and says: “Good morning.”

They rest a little and then shower and do the other usual morning tasks.

“You’ve let your hair grow out,” he observes while they are having breakfast.

She cut it when re-joining Shield and kept it shorter than before until she left Nebraska.

“Yes,” she says. “Longer hair has its advantages, I think.”

“I’d think so,” he agrees.

He gathers her hair in his hand after breakfast and takes it upon himself to test and prove the said advantages, thrusting inside her from behind while inflicting other kinds of delicious torment on her nipples and clit, the pull on the makeshift ponytail in his hand her grounding point as he takes her higher and higher until she falls apart and he follows her shortly after.

He spoons behind her as they collapse on the bed, catching their breaths, hugging her close to him, and then they just lie there as time passes.

“Tell me something. Anything,” she asks after a while, the words coming from somewhere unknown, without her thinking about it.

His arm tightens around her waist, but he doesn’t respond for so long she thinks he might have not heard her or has fallen asleep.

He moves then, so his lips are touching her ear.

“I can’t,” he says.

However, he shows her, yet again, his hands and lips and tongue slow and careful and reverent on her, the intensity of sensation almost too much.

Later, as he holds her to him and she buries her face in the crook of his neck, he brushes his lips against her forehead.

“I’ve missed you,” he says. And it sounds like it is something new to him.

She presses her lips to the nearest spot of skin she can reach. “I’ve missed you too.”

Most likely, she shouldn’t have, but she did.

***

Their lives align almost effortlessly, so much so that a conclusion Sunil voices one Sunday afternoon is neither novel nor surprising.

Jemma is settled on the sofa set, intending to read, though she is paying as much attention to the book in her lap as Sunil does to the newspaper spread open on the coffee table, abandoned for the view through the window.

He looks rather pensive as he turns towards her.

“This is more,” he says. He comes to sit beside her, continuing. “This, whatever this is, between us, it is more than sex.”

She easily agrees: “Yes.”

He brushes his fingers over hers.

“There weren’t others, this past year,” he tells her. “I mean, there were, a couple. But not like you. Even before... After, I’ve had neither time nor desire to bother looking for the closest substitute.”

He pauses, studying her.

“No one has ever submitted to me the way you do, wholly.” He picks up a strand of her hair, tugging at it as he twirls it around his finger, proving his point as the gesture sends a rush of warmth down her spine.

“I know.” She tells him about her dating and its less than satisfactory results. “So, I know,” she finishes. “We are on the same page.”

“Good.” He takes her in his arms and she snuggles against him, sighing happily.

***

The weekends are mostly theirs and sometimes week nights, when they are not otherwise engaged with work or friends.

They do things together and it comes with a certain ease that might be shocking, but feels comfortably natural.

He sometimes runs with her. They find out they both like foreign films.

Most importantly, talking is never a problem, even when they disagree. He uses what she calls his Hydra persona on her that she battles with sarcasm, leading the arguments to end in a vicious make-up sex.

***

Skye shows up on a Thursday while they are having lunch together, albeit they are almost done with it already.

“Hello, Hydra,” she greets. Jemma rolls her eyes, but before she can say anything, Sunil flashes one of his ice-cold grins.

“You’ve got it wrong,” he grits out.

“No, really? Shoot.” Skye looks far from remorseful. “But I practised the right version on your phone.”

That earns her another grin. “Of course you did.”

Sunil stands up as Skye takes a seat without waiting for an invitation. “Ladies. I’ll leave you to… talk.” His face softens up as he leans down to kiss Jemma’s on the cheek, though. “See you later.”

Jemma smiles in return. “See you later.”

“Enjoy yourselves.” He gives Skye a nod, then leaves.

“We will.” Skye seems amused. “So, were you even going to tell me about this, um, development or what?” she demands as she turns to Jemma.

“I would,” Jemma counters, “if you picked up the phone or something instead of always ambushing me during meals.”

“Oh, but _ambushing_ you is so much more fun!” Skye teases.

Jemma sighs, but trying to stay angry with Skye never works for long and she laughs.

“How long?” Skye wants to know.

Jemma thinks shortly. “Not long since after we last talked. A little over a month.”

Skye looks pleased with that.

“Well, getting back with your ex-Hydra boyfriend seems to agree with you. Not that I can judge, considering I’ve got one sort of that kind myself —” she comments.

“He’s not my…” Jemma starts to protest, then stops in her train of thought as it registers with her, firstly, that he might actually just be, and secondly, the rest of what Skye has said.

“Wait, are you and,” she hesitates, “Ward?”

Skye shrugs. “It’s complicated.”

There is an awkward silence, which Skye breaks first. “He gave us Whitehall,” she offers.

“Dead bird type of thing?” Jemma recalls.

“Yeah. I mean, the crapload of info Bakshi spilled to save his skin helped a lot with other things, but Whitehall was all Grant,” Skye shares.

Jemma nods. “I’ve figured that much.”

After that, Skye chatters away, prodding her with questions in turn until Jemma has to go back to work.

Skye hugs her as they say goodbye. “You look happy, and I’m glad. But you know who to call if there’s a problem, right?” she asks.

“Sure,” Jemma says.

“And I’ll call you in case, you know,” Skye lowers her voice, “I need you to off someone. Just kidding!” she bursts out laughing at Jemma’s horrified expression and adds quietly: “But, hey, they should at least be afraid of something. Or someone.”

Jemma shakes her head, laughing as well, and agrees: “I guess so.”

***

It is days later when the conversation with Skye suddenly comes back to Jemma, prompting her to ask the question.

“Do you think they are still out there?”

Sunil doesn’t pretend to not understand what she means: “I hate to break it to you, but haven’t you heard Hydra has fallen, utterly and completely?”

“Oh, please.” Jemma scoffs. “Shield may believe so, Coulson in particularly, because it suits their egos and so they can feel good about themselves, but you and I know better. Cut off one head…” Jemma trails off.

He contemplates it before responding.

“Here, perhaps a few low-level cast-offs Shield overlooked deep underground, nothing more. On the other side of the pond, though… Despite the quite a thorough clean-up, I think… Hiding and quiet, but yes, Hydra’s still out there.”

***

He speaks in his sleep, his arms tightening around her, waking her up.

She doesn’t discern everything, but enough.

_“No. Not her. Jemma…”_

She runs her fingers through his hair and keeps doing it after he wakes up.

“What did I say?” he asks after some time.

“My name.” She believes it is enough of an explanation.

He closes his eyes briefly, then caresses the side of her face. “No one gets to hurt you,” he says, his voice rough.

“Except you.”

“Only for pleasure.” He touches his forehead to hers, his nose brushing against hers. “Always for pleasure,” he whispers.

“Yes.” She wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him close, and he slides down, moulding his body against hers as he presses his lips to the hollow under her throat.

She doesn’t ask what the nightmare was about. She can imagine well enough.

***

Sometime in spring it dawns on them they have been practically living together for a while, half the time in one’s, half in the other’s apartment, with the exception of when he is out of town on business, and they easily decide to just make it a fact and drop two places in favour of one they pick together.

They carry out the decision without the unnecessary delay.

The transition to living together is uncomplicated, hardly accounting for a change in the well-versed manner of coexistence they have established; it is a life never-boring, but still secured in something solid, in the way they know and need each other.

***

Skye says it is hard to believe they are all different people now.

“But we are not,” Jemma disagrees, “we are all still the same, just turned inside out and back, perhaps, torn and patched up. But I think we have found a way to be okay with it.”

“Aww, Simmons, how poetic!”

“I was serious.”

“I know.” Skye contemplates her words, while they walk in silence, then agrees.

“What about Bakshi?” she asks her.

Jemma shrugs. “I know who he is, what he’s done. What he will do again, probably.”

Skye grimaces. “And you’re okay with that?”

It’s not really a question.

“Once, I would have been appalled at the very idea of it. But since then, we have all done bad things, some of us more than others… and who can say what we might do yet. And I decided to take what I can from life, even if it comes with a gritty side, okay, seriously gritty side. But it’s worth it, all of it, the combination.”

Skye huffs. “Yeah, you’re right,” she sighs after a while. “And don’t I know it.”

***

Dinner waiting for her when she gets home on Friday is nothing that hasn’t happened before. It is a take-out, but the fancy version this time — not the first time either, and she doesn’t think much about it.

They talk about the usual things, though she sometimes forgets to, because the food is delicious and she is famished.

When they are finished, Sunil comes to stand before her and holds out his hand for her to pull her up. He doesn’t let go of her, but reaches for her other hand, holding both in his hands.

He studies her for a bit, before he speaks in a quiet voice.

“I didn’t think I could ever want to spend my life with one person. Now I can’t imagine not to. Marry me?”

It stands to reason that she shouldn’t commit her life to this man any more than she already has, but the last part of what he has just said resonates within her: she can’t imagine not to.

She doesn’t even have to think about it. She slips her hand out of his and touches his cheek and smiles up to him and says yes.

He smiles and cups her face in hands and kisses her softly. Then he produces a box from his pocket. The ring is an elegant band of white gold with a white sapphire and it fits her finger perfectly.

“It’s beautiful,” she says.

“No,” he counters, “you are beautiful.” He kisses her again, deeply this time, kindling fires inside her. He rests his forehead against hers as they pull apart for air.

“Dessert?” he asks.

She reaches for his hand, entwining their fingers.

“Dessert can wait.” She smiles. “Take me to bed.”

He laughs, pulling her close. “As you wish.”

***

Though an invitation would be too much, Jemma does call Fitz and tells him herself, so that he doesn’t have to learn from anyone else, most likely Skye.

He takes the news better than she expected, though.

“I had time to think,” he says. “I know you couldn’t help not feeling the same. And maybe I was over- overestimating my own feelings. I don’t know. What I know is that I want you to be happy, Jemma, no matter who’s the reason for it. You are happy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am, Fitz,” she confirms softly, touched by his words.

“That’s good. I’m happy for you then.” Fitz pauses. “And, um, we are still friends, you know, even if I acted like a bloody ass-hole —”

“No, it wasn’t you,” she hurries, interrupting him, “the way I acted… I could’ve done things differently, I just didn’t know how to...”

“I think we both didn’t.”

They can get past it, however, they agree, sometime in the future.

***

The wedding is as small of a deal as they can make of it, as it is above all else a private matter for the two of them.

Jemma has no intention whatsoever of changing her last name, and Sunil laughs when she tells him so.

“Neither would I expect it. I am rather fond of an idea to be married to Jemma Simmons, just as you are,” he tells her.

She wears a simple cream-coloured knee-length dress as they exchange the rings, two bands of red and white gold welded together with carbon fibre, on a warm late-summer Friday morning in the city hall, with only a handful of friends present.

After everyone expresses their congratulations and best wishes and disperses, there are only two people left; seeing Skye doesn’t come as a surprise, but her not being alone does. The man with Skye stands a step behind her, quiet and a little wary, as Skye pulls Jemma into a hug, wishing her all the best.

“You didn’t have to,” says Jemma as Skye presses something into her hands, a box the size of an envelope, only thicker.

“Actually, I did.” says Skye. “It’s just something you would want to know.”

Jemma gets the message. “Thank you.”

“What are friends for,” Skye shrugs, then turns to Sunil: “You.”

Jemma softly chides: “Skye!”

But Skye ignores her, pointing a finger at him: “You should know that if you make her unhappy, I will pull a Romanoff so hard that any government agency you can think of will be the least of your problems. Understood?”

Sunil’s response is solemn: “Perfectly.”

Ward clears his throat and Jemma meets his eyes carefully as he wishes her luck. There are things she needs to say to him, but her wedding is hardly the time and place, so she only smiles and thanks him. For the rest, the time may yet come.

The men only exchange a measured look, before Skye, as per usual, breaks the tension, excusing them as she grabs Ward’s hand and drags him away, because they have “places to go, things to do, R2-D2.”

Jemma giggles at the familiar antics, leaning against her new husband, and tilts her face up so he can kiss her.

***

“Husband,” she murmurs when she opens her eyes the next morning to see him watching her through hooded eyelids.

He grins. “Wife,” he returns, then pulls her closer and kisses her.

He trails the kisses down to her breast and lower, settling between her tights and making sure that she wakes up properly. She returns the favour, the pull of his fingers entangled in her hair telling all she needs to know to be pleased about how well she does it.

Later, when she pads out of the bathroom, she notices Skye’s present on the living room table.

Opening it, she finds a flash drive and an envelope inside. Skye’s writing on the latter instructs her to s _ee what’s on the jump drive first_ , so she starts up her laptop and plugs in the device.

The first file is an audio recording. Jemma opens it and presses play.

It is a phone call.

_Coulson’s usual social niceties with a pinch of sarcasm, then Sunil’s voice._

_“I don’t think we should discuss it over the phone. But by all means, choose the place, bring all the agents you want. Soon. Oh, and you will want me to walk out of there.”_

The rest of the conversation is cut, probably just the negotiating about the when and where.

Jemma checks the date. It was when she was still inside Hydra.

The second file is a video from a security feed of what looks like an empty warehouse. It is of a low quality, and the camera must be placed rather high, somewhere under the roof, Jemma guesses, but the people are still recognisable.

There is Coulson, flanked by May and Trip, standing in the centre of the place, waiting. Other agents must be somewhere off-screen, though their muffled voices, the words-only semi-intelligible, can be heard through the comms, or so she supposes.

She starts wondering what the point of it all is, when everything on the recording quiets down.

Another figure comes into the scene from the right bottom corner, all too familiar despite the angle of the shot.

Jemma’s breath catches in her throat as she watches Coulson and Sunil giving each other a — mildly put — unfriendly once over.

_Coulson speaks first, in a way of greeting. “Mr. Bakshi.”_

_“Mr. Coulson.” Sunil’s hand moves towards his jacket pocket. May and Trip instantly raise their weapons._

_Sunil’s hand freezes mid-air. “May I?”_ _he sounds rather impatient. After Coulson nods, he retrieves his phone from the inside of his jacket, taps it a few times and turns it towards Coulson_. _“My insurance.”_

_Coulson and his companions visibly tense, but don’t react in any other way._

_“If I don’t walk out of here to plug this into a specific computer, this photo will be in every Hydra’s employee’s email in the morning.”_

_After a long silence, Coulson speaks: “Fine. Let’s cut the pleasantries. What do you want?”_

_“I want you to pull your agent out.”_

Jemma gasps in unison with Coulson’s incredulous _“Excuse me?”_ on the video.

_“Pull her out,” Sunil grates. “The sooner, the better.”_

_“Listen, I don’t know what sort of a fool do you think I am, but… am I supposed to believe you are doing this out of the goodness of your heart? That you are not setting some sort of an elaborate trap?” Coulson questions._

_“Believe what you want. It’s your conscience, not mine.”_

_“Why are you doing this?” Coulson asks._

_There is a pause._

_“We all have our weaknesses, as I’m sure you know.” Sunil says at last. “Now, I assume I’m allowed to walk away?”_

_He does just that, without waiting for confirmation, even as he finishes the sentence, but turns back after a few steps: “And, Director? If you even try to use her against me, you will be sorry you were ever born.” Then he turns and disappears out of camera range._

_May and Trip pull out their guns, but Coulson raises his hand and shakes his head._

Jemma stares at the screen as the recording ends. Then she picks up the envelope.

There is a letter inside.

_Jemma,_

_I thought you deserve to know._

_(And because Coulson “monitored” me, too.)_

_So, yeah, I hijacked the base security recordings and the CCTV, and the comms. I didn’t even know I’d need it, but who knows what may come in handy one day._

_Anyway._

_Love, Skye._

Jemma folds the letter and replaces everything in the box.

Then she looks at him, knowing he has been standing in the doorway long enough.

“Why?” she asks.

He hesitates, then asks a question of his own, instead of answering. “Why wouldn’t you just ask for an extraction yourself?” 

Jemma contemplates it, thinking back to that time.

“A lot of reasons, some I’m still not sure about… I had a job to do; Shield was a wreck so much so being at Hydra sometimes almost seemed better, better than facing Fitz; and Ward… and everything.”

She pauses.

“I’d like to say it was partly due to a certain person’s charms…”

“…but you would be lying,” he smiles as he finishes for her.

“Not entirely,” she objects. She sighs.

He crosses the room, crouching down in front of her. “It’s okay.”

“It was complicated,” she says.

“I know. Still is,” he adds. “It’s good.”

“Yes.”

He sits beside her and pulls her against him.

After a while she asks again: “Why?”

“Self-preservation. Or that was what I would say once. Bloody Morse was breathing down your neck and I had no idea she was another damn mole. Had you been found out, I would have been implicated by association, on the list for compliance or worse right beside you. Not really far-fetched thinking, as it turned out.”

He pauses.

“Truth? I wasn’t sure whether I could stand by and watch being done to you what is done to enemy spies, much less be the one doing it. So, again, self-preservation, in a way.”

He hugs her more tightly. After a while, he puts his finger under her chin, tilting her face up to look in her eyes.

“More truth?” he asks, not waiting for a response. “Nobody hurts you.”

***

A few weeks into autumn, Skye liaises for her to meet with Ward for a coffee during her lunch break.

“What’s your weapon of choice?” Grant asks in a way of greeting, a wry smile playing around his lips.

Jemma grimaces, a lump forming in her throat. “None?”

He waits for her to sit before taking a seat across from her. “You don’t have to do this.”

She takes a deep breath. “But I do. I really, really do. What I said… I was out of line. And I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

Jemma exhales. Could it really be that easy?

“I had issues with a lot of things and I took it out on you. And, um, considering the situation, I was a hypocrite.”

He shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. “I understand… I mean, it takes time to figure things out, to process. I would know.”

Jemma isn’t sure how to respond to that, though she can guess what he might refer to.

“I’m sorry, too,” Grant adds after a minute. “For the pod,” he clarifies. “It should’ve floated.”

“I know,” Jemma hurries. “It wasn’t your fault it didn’t.” She sighs. “You saved my life, and not just that once.”

“Just doing my job,” he dismisses it, obviously meaning the other times

She decides to drop it. It is just a beginning after all, and neither of them is ready to try to unload the full weight of the past.

“Well, Skye will be happy that there were no casualties,” he tries to joke before they part, and Jemma chuckles.

“Yes, she will.”

Grant hesitates a bit, shuffling in place. “Is he good to you?”

She nods.

“Good. Because if things go south…”

Jemma smiles. “Skye made it clear. I know who to call.”

***

“If the worst gets to the worst,” Sunil mentions one day, “we run, together.”

“Well, I’d try to pull some strings first, you know, as I might know some people…” Jemma makes light of the topic, taking it as matter-of-factly as if this sort of conversation is an everyday occurrence in an average home.

He scoffs. “Of course.”

“But,” she continues, “if it doesn’t work out, then we run. Together.”

***

She is not as naive as not to suspect Sunil’s business trips to Europe of potentially entailing other aspects behind those apparent ones.

He presents her with a folder one day, asking her to take a look at whether any improvements can be made.

Jemma appreciates that he doesn’t offer an excuse, nothing such as it being a favour for a friend or a client.

She takes it to the lab and reads through it during her lunch break. The content is inconspicuous enough — a scientific project for the betterment of mankind. But she knows better, knows what is lurking beneath the surface.

Jemma knows what she should do — what the good girl Jemma would think she should do: contact Shield or at the very least say she couldn’t find anything to remark upon.

Instead she picks up a pen and puts down her notes in the margins. She falters for a moment when she is finished, then decides to be bold and puts down an asterisk, making a note that while the project’s outcomes could be highly beneficial for society, a great care should be taken that they aren’t abused for unethical or inhumane purposes.

She leaves the folder on the kitchen counter for him to find in the evening.

He flips through the pages, pausing at the end. He doesn’t comment on it, but she can glimpse a faint smirk before he turns away to hide it.

They don’t talk about it. There is no need to, after all.

After dinner, he sits at one end the sofa with his laptop, so she can stretch along the rest of it. Her mind wanders, not paying attention to the news on the TV. He closes his laptop and puts it aside, leaning back. She doesn’t think beforehand when she gives him a nudge with her foot and asks, not that she expects an answer, or needs it, for that matter.

“So? Hail Hydra?”

He looks surprised for a fleeting moment, then the corners of his lips twitch in amusement and his eyes glint with a little bit of pride, because of course she figured it out long ago.

He takes her hands in his and pulls her to him, kissing her temple before tucking her into his side. She snuggles against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and turns her attention to the TV.

After so long she has all but forgotten the matter, he replies, without much enthusiasm, merely stating a fact.

“Hail Hydra.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think. Comments are always welcome.


End file.
